


Fireworks in E Minor

by piq_snine



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, Implied/Referenced Character Death, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-12
Updated: 2014-02-12
Packaged: 2018-01-12 02:57:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1181103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/piq_snine/pseuds/piq_snine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John reflects during a fireworks show. Sherlock plays a song on the violin. Why is John crying?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fireworks in E Minor

**Author's Note:**

> Play this song in the background http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXDQ-QliMJI you won't regret it.

Walking home after dark was something more of a relief than he thought it would be. The air was balmy, not too warm, not too cool, just this side of breezy. Hands deep in his trouser pockets, John Watson sighed heavily. Lost in his thoughts he scuffed his shoe against a decent sized stone. He remembers playing kick the can as a schoolboy, and did that bring back memories.

His country side home, the village where he attended school. It all came back to him with a sweet acidity, like fresh squeezed lemonade. Sweet, tart, refreshing and completely comforting. He missed that taste, missed his youth Squandered away chasing ants, then girls, then patients, then…. No. He mustn’t try to remember what followed after the war. His first war.

John’s eyebrows furrowed, mouth slanting to one side. Anyone who didn’t know him assumed he was swimming in painful memories. Anyone who did know him knew it would be pain of the heart.

Digging his hands deeper into his pockets, he kicked the rock again, watched it go skidding down the gravel road. He snorted through his nose, had he been back at the Baker Street flat, he would be called out for sulking.

Suddenly, there was a whistling, then a pop with several dozen consecutive crackles following. John looked up to the sky, red painted the landscape, then gold, then green. Fireworks. Some of the ‘pops’ sounded like gunfire. To which his reactions were tempered by age and experience. He didn’t even flinch when one practically boomed through the summer night’s air. John stood, corduroy jumper snug around his shoulders, and watched passively at the fireworks.

They didn’t bring forth any sort of specific feelings and memories, but it did allow him to sift through them hypnotically.

Mary-Elizabeth, his first kiss in first year in primary. Marshal Dathers, his other first kiss, quite a scandal on his collegiate rugby team. His first failed course in uni. His first bad break-up. Graduation from initial training. When he got shot. Then when he first met his best….

“No.” John shook his head, looked away from the fireworks.

Those memories he stingily kept.

Precious moments. Terrible moments. Elation. Adrenaline. Fear. Competence. Exhaustion. Heart break. Heart break, heart break, heart break. All of them most precious to him. Every stitch of memory woven together and shared with the other… banker.

John kicked more rocks on his way home, memories following in the form of washed out colors of light on the ground.

The walk home wasn’t long, but it was long enough to get himself centered before getting to the weathered wood gate. Flowers drooped and vines crawled over the gate, yard and home. During the day there would be bees everywhere. Honey bees. Sherlock’s bees.

John smirked the first time Sherlock mentioned wanting to raise a colony out here. Before, when Mary was still around to laugh at them, John had denied it to Sherlock. At first. Eventually, Sherlock won.

“He always wins.” John stood in front of the red door. The cottage was dark and silent. John partially worried that Sherlock had ‘escaped’ the house again. Then, as the sound of fireworks faded, music filled the house. Distant, despondent, and haunting sounds.

He had always enjoyed listening to the consulting detective play. His striped pajamas, bare feet, long, draping house coat, shaggy mop of black curls. In previous years, whenever Sherlock always caught him listening, pausing in his play and stopping John on the spot with his owlish grey eyes.

Hoping to actually be caught this time, John turned his key and entered the house as quietly as possible. His hip was finally buggering him after his walk, so he shuffled. His arthritis had been terribly inconvenient when he turned sixty, but it was entirely expected after the lifestyle he had led. Sherlock had commented once, eleven years ago, that his limp wasn’t psychosomatic anymore.

John limped down the hall, shuffling as quietly as possible, then through the kitchen to peeked into the sitting room where the sound was coming from. Pushing open the oak door he realized it was Sherlock actually playing the violin. He hadn’t been able to play for almost twenty five years.

Tears pricked at his eyes, stinging and wet as they rolled down his cheeks. If Mary could see her boys now.

“John?” the name softly spoken, as if the single breath it took to speak it would dispel everything. “I’m sorry. If I woke you.”

“No. No. You’re fine,” choking “Sherlock.”

The taller man looked at his life-long companion as if he had only known him for a day. Not sure if he’s offended, but knowing he stepped on toes.

“Americans.” Sherlock swept his bow towards the window where more fireworks were lit and then spent in the sky.

“Right. Yes. July fourth and all that.”

“Correct.” Sherlock eyed him again, trying to figure out what was wrong.

John shuffled over to the window, where Sherlock occupied. He stood, as tall as his stooped form could, in front of Sherlock. Grey eyes, sharp and focused now, oiled grey hair attempting to control his curls, and wrinkled eyes. Sherlock was handsome in his youth and he was handsome still. John could be content with this, but confidence encouraged him. Standing on the tips of his toes, John pressed a small kiss on the corners of Sherlock’s mouth.

“John.” As if he was confirming it was him. A hand, free of a dropped bow, reached up to his face. “You’ve got wrinkles.”

“I should, Sherlock.” God he’d never tire of saying his name. “I’m eighty-seven.”

“Oh.” Sherlock said, confused. “Mary. I finished her composition. If you want to bring her in here. Of course, it’s too late at night. Eighty-four, she’d be asleep. Maybe you’d like to listen. Remind me to play it in the morning.”

And suddenly, he was Sherlock again. Boundless energy prattling on confident in his intelligence. Still entirely everything he had ever been, intelligent, enigmatic, charismatic…late.

“Yes. Yes, I’ll remind you.” Quickly, “But I’d like to hear it, if you could.”

Sitting in his chair, the same chair, reupholstered from Baker Street, across from Sherlock’s own, pre-ordered, stacks in the storage house. Hip buggering him he shuffled and sat as quickly as he could, flopping back he smacked his hands on the arm rests, like he always did when settling in for a deduction.

“Of course I can. Why wouldn’t I—“ Sherlock paused, a light bulb clicking on. “Oh.”

“—“

“How much time?” Sherlock picked up his bow gingerly.

“About eleven minutes. But it’s been getting shorter. Don’t know how long you’ve been –“

“Lucid? Two minutes before you interrupted me.”

“Ass.” John smiled. Sherlock smiled. “Always about you.”

“Always.” He picked up the bow. The first few long notes rang in vibrato. Shaking. Stirring. Engaging. This song was his first composition written for his God-son. This song meant something infinitely more personal than his first wedding composition. There were more written for the Watson family, but this one was Sherlock’s personal favorite, something shared with the elder.

The notes drifted, fireworks crackling outside lighting up the room with its reds, blues, greens, and yellows. Tears slipping in the dim light, John listened to Sherlock play until his fingers begun missing strings, until the bow finally stopped.

“Alright, Sherlock.” John pulled himself out of his chair. “Time for bed.”

He fought a little, not knowing where he was. John carefully pried bow and violin out of Sherlock’s grip and placed them in its case. They shuffled to bed, Sherlock silent and wondering with child-like eyes at the halls with portraits hung up. News clippings carefully framed of two smiling blokes, caution tape, murder scenes, all of them with two men in it together. The news clipping faded until a wedding photo of a woman in white separating the two same men, all smiling in varying degrees. Then, photos of a baby girl, growing to a taller blond girl with a stuffed glowing rabbit, playing tea with a dark haired man, then, a baby brother, his christening with the same tall man. Sherlock couldn’t place the smiles, or why they weren’t familiar, but he could mirror them. On good days.

John Watson tucked Sherlock Holmes into his bed, quilt snugged up tight to his chin, he bid good-night to the withered man. To which he never got a reply, and checked the window to make sure it was secure, then locked the door behind him as he made his way to his bedroom. Sherlock could never sleep well at night. His wanderings led him far away from the house and John was too old to go chasing him.

The next morning was toast, boiled egg, orange juice, and meds. Sherlock sat at the table, looking for all the world lost. John brought over the juice and an mp3 recorder. Juice pushed in his hand John ordered for him to drink. A firm believer in punishment and reward when dealing with this Holmes, he handed over the recorder after the cup was drained.

“Don’t forget to play your song, Sherlock.” John, back turned and shuffled to his chair. Sherlock, silently studying the device, clicked play.

**Author's Note:**

> #notdead


End file.
